Free UnBound by Neal Shusterman

only give ice cream on a weekday when something truly bad happens. The last time was the day before another batch of kids was put on a bus to be unwound.
    Sitting on a sun-warmed bench, she figures that even with the DormGuardians chattering about where to put the napkin dispensers, she isn’t going to find a quieter spot at the StaHo. She closes her eyes against visual distractions and leans into the dappled sunlight beneath a spreading maple tree. She lets the rustling leaves envelop her.
    In a few years making life-and-death decisions will be commonplace for her. On the battlefield she’ll kill enemies to protect friends. As she advances, she will eventually have to choose which friends will die to protect their platoon. Her orders will end the lives of innocents caught in a cross fire or buried in a bombing raid.
    The decision she makes in the next hour will prepare her for those times just as fitness and marksmanship training prepare her physically. She’s making herself a better soldier, she tells herself. A better leader.
    Leaving herself on the harvest list is not an option. Having a friend who knows how to alter the ranking algorithm gives her this advantage, this weapon. If you are attacked, then you defend yourself.
    This is her defending herself.
    Having had time to let her thoughts settle, the choice of who will take her place on the list is obvious.
    Risa is smart and talented. She shouldn’t be punished for having a bad day. On the other hand, Logan might be a good friend, but he’s not too bright, and he’s only an average boeuf. It’s only a matter of time before they unwind him anyway.
    She considers carefully what the lieutenant said to her. No matter what, the squad is your family. He meant that even if it costs the lives of others worthier than her fellow soldiers, her comrades come first.
    Someday that may be true for her. To save her comrades she may one day need to level a museum, aim her rifle at a poet, or gun down an entire orchestra.
    But not today. Today she will choose to save the life of a piano player instead of a boeuf.
    A 5:00 factory whistle sounds in the distance, and she chuckles. In the end she made her decision in less than thirty minutes. She has time to change into the Parana River shirt Logan gave her. It seems a nice thing to do for him before he’s unwound.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    Her Parana River shirt is missing.
    She’d worn it yesterday but not for long. She’d folded it and put it in her nightstand drawer. It isn’t there now. Did someone take it?
    Feverishly she goes through her laundry hamper. The stink of dirty clothes sticks to her hands and fills her nose. She reaches the bottom of the hamper. Not there. Someone has taken it.
    She immediately remembers that other time when she accused Risa of stealing her shirt, and the humiliation that followed, but tries to brush the thought away.
    Naomi and two of her friends enter. Brooklyn’s anger boils over. Naomi was jealous of that shirt yesterday. Of course she pilfered it!
    Brooklyn launches herself at Naomi, shoving her against the wall, her forearm compressing Naomi’s throat. Another girl shrieks, but Brooklyn’s menacing growl overrides her loud protests.
    â€œWhere’s my shirt?”
    Naomi is unable to breathe, her eyes are wild, and her fingernails score bloody lines in Brooklyn’s skin. Bucking frantically under Brooklyn’s forearm, Naomi manages to overset them both, and they crash sideways onto the laundry hamper.
    â€œAre you crazy?” Naomi vaults away from Brooklyn. “You could’ve killed me.”
    Brooklyn pushes the hamper away and starts after Naomi again, but one of the other girls, a hefty boeuf from Squad C, inserts herself between them. She’s almost as big as Pecs. The memory of that fight sobers Brooklyn, but her anger still simmers.
    â€œGive me back my Parana River shirt,” Brooklyn snarls. “I